Fruit of Democracy

Article No. 5
08/June/2019

Democracy is the ruling system, which evolved over 1000s of years of human history. It is realised that it is the most acceptable and affordable system of government in cross-culturally. Phrase of Abraham Lincoln in the 19th century says that democracy is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. Now, in the 21st century, the will of the people is being hijacked in a democratic election by populism, cult, deception, false promises, freebies, majoritarianism etc. Presently, democracy is surviving not because of its efficiency and acceptance but due to lack of alternate remedy. If not preserve its values, democracy will be obsolete within 30 to 40 years. Most of the democratic countries in the world are getting obsessed with the democratically elected government within a short span of time of the newly elected government.

United States of America and India are the major democratic countries of the world. Both having seems to be a right-wing conservative government, but in India, it is in the opposite direction. Management of the economy is very key to all democratic governments across the world. Even though, Indian election campaigns are narrowed down to immediate gratification of the people. Generally, people assess the government and claims of opposition parties based on the election campaign and recent events happened to just before the election. This is the major drawback of the common people. Also, in majoritarianism, power concentrates into very few people, which cause to take any extreme steps in their ruling with a strong mandate.

Gerrymandering of Religions = Majoritarianism

Even though, the democratic government elected by the majority of the vote they get; democracy never mean that it is a majority ruling system of government. But ideologies professing and propagating in election campaigns reveals a different story. Political parties are eager to get the majority of vote by insulting and cornering minorities in the country. This makes actually a polarisation of masses in the line of communal line. This not only unhealthy for democracy but dangerous too. The policy of winning at any cost of political parties ruin the fruit of democracy and underestimate the ability of decision-making capacity and wisdom of votes in the democratic country.

Majoritarianism and polarisation are very easy to generate in a society by a political party in the country, but it cannot be stopped even these political parties wish to do. Categorising people based any of the identity they possess, will further lead to wrong consolidation and polarisation. Soul of our society and individual never endorse communal divide in suo motto, but it is always being injected to it by external forces like politically motivated entities. Gerrymandering is a technique used in the USA for redrawing political boundaries for electoral gains. Now in India, gerrymandering of religion majoritarianism is happening. It was widely visible in the campaign of General Election 2019 in India. Earlier religious priest ruled the people, which eventually destroys both religion and state in historical records in different countries. The number of narrow-minded priests in Indian MPs are increased very drastically in near General Elections. It will destroy both religion and state. The government should be secular and Society should religious for a meaningful and purposeful nation.

High-Voltage Campaign

Earlier election campaigns are conveying ideologies, future plans and evaluation of existing administration. But it turned into an upside down to tarnishing personally and spreading communal hatred by using state of the art technologies with crores of money investment. Event managers and advertising companies’ conquered the fundamental meaning and purpose of the election campaign. Social Medias are flooded with fake and half-true paid news across the people. This sophisticated situation created a difficult task for people to select goodness from evil. It is a deception of political parties to mock people for electoral gains. The hype over reality is very visible throughout in the General Election Campaign of 2019.

Pretended sentiments in front of the people help political parties to grab vote from people rather evaluate the merit of ideologies and future plans. Marketing of grievances of the people is a recent strategy in India put forward by Saul Alinsky in 1970s in the United States of America. He explains in his book ‘Rules of Radicals’ says that encourage grievances of people. It is explicitly happening in the political campaign across the world, especially in India. They are playing, marketing and encouraging grievances of the people. Most majority of the people are not knowing these facts, and they are becoming more foolish than before. Truth and goodness must be encouraged to prevail in election campaigns. It makes good and satisfied people as well as society.

Fake Promises

Election promises and freebies are a deception to people. Because no government make money as they want. If it so, inflation will be skyrocketed. Everybody should understand the fact that all election promises and freebies are fulfilled by people’s money in one way or other.

Subsidies, Freebies and Free Cash Transfer programs are needed to be gradually stopped in a time-bound manner. These make people lazy and less productive. If production is decreased and consumption is increased, eventually it leads to large inflation that harm to everyone in this country. Psychologically, free receiving makes people to addict to it. Addiction to anything in life will ruin his happy and satisfied life. Further, it shifts to violence and corruption. Therefore, political parties are must be more careful before giving promises for electoral gains in a democratic system with long vision.

The long list of unfulfilled promises will be there even after their tenure ended. This culture of exciting people based on promises is unhealthy to a democratic system and country at large. Political parties must be more careful and sincere when they prepare election manifesto. They must do a thorough study of the doability of their promises. Otherwise, it will affect the credibility of political parties, negatively affect the economic fabric of this country and people’s trust in the political system. Fruit of the Democracy is expected to reduce gaps and deficits between people, political party and country.

Future of Democracy

Future of democracy is under threat because it lacks its fruits. It damaged unrepairably from its inceptions. People are unhappy and unsatisfied about working of the democratic system in many democratic countries. But it will sustain until and unless an alternate system introduced. The one-world government may be an alternate solution as biblical prophecies interpreted, which would more complicated and lead to a catastrophic situation. So it is essential to preserve and protect democracy at any cost as last as possible. Confidence lost and trust deficit must be cleared and managed by political parties and its leaders. Eventually, then it will lead to yield more fruit of democracy to people of the country.

By,

Nithin A F

Doing Post Graduation in Psychology

Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala.

Email : nithinaf@gmail.com

www.NithinAF.blogspot.com

08/June/2019